


Burn Me

by LovelyOne



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-25 04:05:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2607827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyOne/pseuds/LovelyOne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To fix what is broken, one should first see the damage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She couldn't sleep. 

It wasn't the uncomfortable mattress, the odd, misshapen pillows or the scratchy duvet.  
It wasn't the heat, sticking her nightdress to her body and stifling the air.  
It wasn't even the memory of the AWFUL speech she had delivered earlier in the evening, although she was certain every word would be revisited over and over, growing louder and louder until it simply became a rush of panic and self loathing. All that in due time though, her mind had decided. First things first.

His face.

The words she had bleated may not be ready for dissection just yet, the fallout still to be dealt with. She remembers his rage stare burning into her from the back of the crowd but really after all the years in his presence that particular expression had become standard. 

It was after. After the verbal vomitting and the bemused questions of the collected journalists and the terrible responses to those questions and then the rambling rap up. After she all but ran from the hall and drank the contents of two rescue remedy bottles and hyperventilated as Ollie made unhelpful sarcastic remarks and Helen, dear two faced Helen, tried to find the silver lining to the shit coloured cloud that now surrounded them all. 

After she blamed him for allowing it to happen at all. 

His face.

It just froze. Usually that signalled a voilent outburst of verbal abuse to which there would seem no end until the recipient cowered in defeat and agreed to any and all terms of surrender just to recover some personal space. This time it was as though someone had pressed pause on the remote control. He just looked at her as she unloaded all the responsibility onto his shoulders and told him to reverse the entire situation. Make it so she hadn't thrown away her career. It was his job after all, she had told him. Fix this. Never mind how. She didn't need to worry herself with how. It was his job.

He said nothing, looked away from her, jaw clenched so hard she swore she heard teeth grinding. The other two had fallen silent as she had ripped into him, probably expecting perforated eardrums when he got his turn. With the silence ticking by they shuffled uncomfortably then rushed to fill that silence with more of their blathering.

She, however had seen, for a split second before he broke eye contact, a look she couldn't remove from her mind. It was hours later and it wouldn't leave. He'd looked hurt. Something in what she had said had slid through all his layers of armour, past the rage and actually hurt him enough for the mask of anger to slip. She couldn't think of anything she hadn't said before, especially in the last two years as he propped her up as Leader of the Opposition, that could have been that powerful. He seemed to be waiting, in case there was more but the look had thrown her. She took a step back and he must have taken that as permission to leave. He had walked away, one hand massaging the bridge of his nose tiredly. All three were left gawping at his retreating back. 

She rolled onto her back for the hundredth time and groaned. Malcolm Tucker's hurt feelings should be the least of her worries. Somehow she needed to look put together and strong for tomorrow. The press were going to destroy her. Realistically there was nothing to be done. Even Malcolm couldn't reverse time. There had been too many journalists. He couldn't silence them all. Nor could he spin her words into something positive. She'd said that the unemployed weren't trying hard enough. She hadn't meant to of course, it was supposed to be a speech entirely about speaking FOR the unemployed. She was supposed to say that the current government weren't trying hard enough. But in true Murray fashion, once she'd misspoken, she continued, plowing on and on about people making more effort and taking responsibility and not reading a word of her notes in front of her.

A frantic knock on her hotel door ripped her from her self recrimination. It didnt stop until she answered.

"Ollie?"

"I know it's late." Ollie said breathlessly " but if you wouldn't mind going downstairs and sorting him out I'd be really grateful."

Putting aside the idea of Ollie showing gratitude to anyone, the entitled little worm, she concentrated on his request. "Sorting who out?"

"Erm, the skeletal agent of doom with the scottish accent and the ultimate evil eye. Who is currently sprawled across the bar, attempting to drown himself in whisky."

Nicola snorted inelegantly. "Ollie, Malcolm doesn't drink. I've seen him carry the same drink around for an entire night when appearances require it. I've never seen him actually drink." Despite her own words she moved into her room and pulled on a pair of trousers, leaving Ollie waiting at the door. Because she could sense impending doom in his words. And a person should be dressed when facing the apocolypse. She shouldn't have tried to sleep. What was the point in fighting the inevitable.

She knew why Malcolm didn't drink, like everything else it was about the job. He was technically on call twenty four seven. Scandal did not keep to office hours, often it occured outside of them. He had to be at his best at all times. Even though the time in opposition meant he had less to firefight, he had to keep himself in the loop of any sniff of trouble occurring in government in case it could be weaponised. He needed to be able to spin at a moment's notice. 

He should be fighting the enormous forest fire that was Nicola Murray's most recent attempt at Public Speaking. Even though she knew he couldn't fix it, the fact that he was drinking meant game over for her. He wasn't even going to make a token effort. She felt a flicker of her previous anger. Then the face returned to her mind. And with it a question.

Had she broken Malcolm Tucker?


	2. Chapter 2

Ollie's tendency towards exaggeration was on fine form. 

The Scottish agent of doom was not in fact, sprawled drunkenly across the bar. He was perched primly on a barstool in the darkest corner, glaring at his empty glass. Nicola took a moment to look at him, because really, did she need any more drama? She had rushed down here expecting to deal with either an out of control, venom spitting cobra or a scrawny old goat in a whisky soaked coma. 

So far as she could discern from her position in the doorway, drunk Malcolm looked exactly like sober Malcolm. Which did not discount the venomous option. And since sober Malcolm had once punched Glen Cullen in the face when shouting hadn't got him the desired outcome, control was tenuous at the best of times.

If she could only push the memory of her earlier attack away. She could turn around. Head back upstairs. Take a sleeping pill. Deal with it all tomorrow. If only.

But Nicola Murray was well known for forward motion, regardless of how much worse she could make a situation. She was also well aware that she owed her position in its entirety to the rage fuelled old buzzard. She certainly did not have the force of will necessary to climb to the top of the party on her own. He had begun to shove her up there the second she'd muttered she could do a better job than Dan fucking Miller. It had never occurred to her to ask why. But that question now carried her all the way across the room to his side. He glanced up briefly at the sudden movement.

"Why me?" She asked, dragging a stool behind her and parking herself at his elbow, noting the way he flinched and pulled his arm away.

"I really don't want to do this right now Nicola." He said wearily, ignoring the question and looking moodily back down to his glass. 

"Malcolm-"

He turned to look at her abruptly. She knew then that Ollie hadn't actually been melodramatic at all. His gaze was foggy, but not just with alcohol. She felt herself tearing up in response as he gave a hollow laugh, looking at the ceiling and shaking his head, as if to deny his own emotion.

"I need to hate you, Nicola." He said to the ceiling. "I cannot find the energy to be angry and I need to be angry and that would be so very much easier if I could hate you." 

"Okay, I know the speech went badly." She said, groping for her own anger. "And I know it's not your fault, I shouldn't have said it was but I was panicking!"

"Please just go the fuck back upstairs." 

"No, I need to say I'm sorry!" Grabbing his arm to force him to look at her was instinctual, but unwise. His body locked up. He didn't seem to be breathing and his gaze was fixed to the point where her hand was tight on his forearm. She felt every minute movement of her fingers as she carefully let go. "I'm always getting it wrong with you aren't I?" 

"Please just go a-fucking-way else i might say something I'll regret... like 'I think you'd make a decent leader'. I shitting well regret that."

Nicola flushed, there's that elusive anger, she realised.

"You fucking prick!" She hissed, grabbing his arm again lest he thought he was escaping. "You did say it though, Malcolm. You said you believed in me and so I believed too."

"You were supposed to be the friendly face! The nice lady who wants what's best for this country. The opposite of big bad JB. I thought you'd be perfect because it's what you are! You are nice and you are friendly and a tiny bit of awkward and fucking clumsy can be charming." He stood up as he spoke, voice still low even though they were alone in the room. The glaze over his eyes had been replaced by anger, red creeping across his neck above his collar though his face retained it's usual pallor. "That's what I believed."

"I haven't changed."

"No" he laughed, shaking off the hand that still attempted to hold him in place. " you haven't. For two years you've been the nice, bumbling old aunt figure. Fucking perfect. Except you haven't let me do my job."

She looked at him incredulously. 

"It's all well and good for you to ask me to make you look like less of a fuck up. But you want me to do it without making anyone else look bad. It's all, we don't use other people's issues to our advantage, we don't kick people when they're down, we're above that." Never mind that they will use every single mistake you make to keep our party out of office forever. We won't do the same."

"So you're okay for me to have principles, so long as they don't intrude on your lack of them." It was her turn to laugh. This was the most ridiculous conversation she'd ever had. He actually believed that made sense! 

"I just want you to let me do my job! I'm good at my job. For the past two years I've been like a fucking dog with no teeth. I can still bark but i don't look very fucking menacing do I? When everyone knows you won't let me use anything I find to attack. And then, after all that, you tell me it's my fault when things go wrong for you. I'm to blame for your inability to do your job as well as my own inability to do mine." 

The weary look was back. He scrubbed a hand across his face, took a breath and moved towards the door, Nicola swivelled in her seat and watched him. She took a moment to speak and he almost got out of the room before her words reached him. 

"Then why do it?" She asked "Two years is a long time, why are you still here?"

He looked at her tiredly. "The same reason I asked you to stay, to not go to America."

"Ah, for the party." What a surprise.

The look he gave her was sad and resigned. Eventually he replied.

"Yeah...for the party."


	3. Chapter 3

So. Not, in fact, for the party.

She wasn't sure she could take any more. How could one day go on for so long? She felt rung out. 

Malcolm had been a constant in her life for the last four years. Her other constants had been her children, who she loved but despaired of most days, her husband, who she despised every single second and Oliver Reeder, the useless string bean who would turn on her in a heartbeat and probably was at this moment crawling on his belly to lick Dan Miller's arsehole. 

She'd always thought he hated her. He seemed to hate everyone. Except Sam, but she was some sort of divine being, it would be impossible to hate Sam. But nobody else was ever spared his disgusted glare. She certainly hadn't been. He had called her all manner of vulgar names since day one. Even once she'd become his 'superior' and he should have treated her with the utmost respect he had still managed to pepper any and all comments with snide remarks and sarcasm. 

And yet he had asked her to stay. 

She remembered that day, obvious shitstorm that it had been with her alternating between quivering in her office in terror at the thought of his return and charging in to confront him about America and his Views on her departure. And she still felt the echoes of that rush of desperate rage she had felt when he'd finally revealed how he had taken care of the issue without her permission.

The idea that something other than Party Strategy had been in his mind at that time, though. Was that really a thought she was beginning to entertain?

So the nasty behaviour was, what? A boy with a crush, pulling pigtails?

She snorted to herself as she climbed the stairs after him. He disappeared round the corner to his room as she stood at the junction debating whether to go right, back to her room with the terrible mattress and broken air conditioning. (And the promise of reliving the monstrous speech of course, she hadn't done that bit yet) or go left, following him to his to continue the discussion that had scratched at the surface of their personal and professional relationship. 

Fuck it, left it would be. Hang the consequences. 

Today was for revelations, tomorrow could be for consequences.

***

Sunlight strobing through the blinds cut into her slumber like lightening through a tree trunk, sudden and devastating.

His mattress wasn't lumpy, nor was his duvet scratchy, her sleep addled brain supplied. And his air con was working fine. She was freezing.

She was freezing.

She leapt off the bed. She was freezing because she was fucking naked!

She grabbed the nearest wearable thing she could find and wrapped it around herself. It was his suit jacket and did a very poor job of providing modesty. Luckily her panic stricken brain had already skittered off into the direction of the bed she'd just vacated. The one clearly still occupied by it's owner. Who, it would appear from the expanse of back revealed, was also a bit, slightly naked.

Nicola stumbled backwards onto the vanity stool and sat down heavily, hands over her mouth.

She had none of the luxury of the hungover person. Her memory was clear. HD fucking clear. Unlike her conscience! 

She had definitely, without a doubt had sex with Malcolm Tucker. Angry, grasping, sweaty sex. 

With biting and finger marks and noise.

Oh good god.

She had gone left. Confronted him as soon as he opened the door. Accused him of being in love with her. Berated him for not ever, ever fucking saying anything. And then slammed him against the wall, kicked his door shut and kissed him.

He'd tensed up at first, not really reacting as she forced her tongue between his lips and a knee between his legs. Then he went boneless, pulling her in and letting out a groan as he kissed her back, hands moving up to grasp her hair.

He'd tasted of whisky and mint, she remembered. 

He'd felt like fire and brimstone. Surrounding her in heat and passion. 

Both had fought for dominance, rolling across the bed, alternating who was on top, pinning each other with limbs and searing kisses, neither holding the upper hand for very long, neither willing to give in. 

She could see from where she was seated the rake marks made by her fingernails that covered his back. She knew she had bitten him. She turned to look in the mirror and yes, her collar bone held the evidence of his returning the favour.

Suddenly the consequences that she had shrugged away so casually a few hours ago were beginning to loom fairly large. 

Also.

He appeared to be waking up.


End file.
